This invention relates to a status information providing system, apparatus, method and storage medium for providing a terminal with information via a general-purpose network.
There are various methods of entering (registering) the status information of a plurality of input/output units in a database device and utilizing (acquiring) the status information that has been registered.
One example of such a method involves communicating with a database via a dedicated input communication port by client-server-type communication, registering the status information of an input/output unit, and acquiring data, which has been registered in the database, via a dedicated output communication port.
When it is attempted to construct a client-server-type communication system utilizing a dedicated communication port in a case where the status information of a plurality of input/output ports is entered (registered) in a database and status information that has been registered is utilized, dedicated input/output communication ports and a dedicated client or server in which a dedicated communication format has been set must be created individually. Further, the status information thus registered can be utilized only by a dedicated client. In order to use this information for another purpose, a dedicated client must be created separately for this purpose.
The following methods have been proposed or implemented in order to specify the input/output information of a plurality of input/output terminals as information resources utilizable on a network:
A typical scheme that has been proposed is the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) used in HyperText Markup Language. A subset thereof in widespread use is the Universal Resource Locator (URL). An URL is defined by RFC 1808. An URL is implemented in such a manner that a resource that can be utilized (referred to) on a network is capable of being specified in the following format:
scheme://host:port/path;parameter?query#fragment
The scheme represents the protocol utilized; the host represents the host name or IP address; the port represents the port number utilized by the protocol server; and the path represents the path and file name for referring to the resource on the server. The parameter represents a specific parameter necessary for a resource; the query represents a query character string for a CGI (Common Gateway Interface); and the fragment represents reference to a subset of a resource.
In a case where selection of an information resource specified by an URL is performed using a browser or the like, two techniques are available. One technique involves inputting the URL to the browser. The other technique involves selecting an information resource without inputting an URL, specifically (1) a method of creating a web page in which hyperlinks specifying the URLs of information resources have been established, and (2) a method of creating a web page in which hyperlinks specifying the URLs of information resources have been established utilizing a registration-type web page search engine, in which the party that transmits the information is made to register the URL of the information resource.
In a case where a specific information resource is selected from input/output information resources supplied by a plurality of input/output terminals by an URL or the like according to the prior art, it is necessary that the web page on which the hyperlink specifying the information resource is set be created by the information transmitting party in advance or be registered on a registration-type web page by the information transmitting party.
Method (1) requires that a web page be created by a manual operation. With method (2), a registration operation is performed manually, registration takes time and information relating to input/output information resources cannot be updated in real-time.